Witcher 3 Dev Says DLC “Devalued,” Will Provide Players Free Content

CD Projekt RED will give players “smaller” pieces of DLC for The Witcher 3 for free.

The developer confirmed this, as well as its intention to approach downloadable content “differently” from other developers in an interview released yesterday. According to studio CEO Marcin Iwinski, it’s all part of the “long-term agreement” the company enters into when it sells its games.

“When we make a game and ask people to pay money for it, we sign a long-term agreement with them,” said Iwinski. “We owe them. They paid us money, whether it was a full-price purchase or a bit later, we owe them support of our game. So people will get a lot of support with Witcher 3, and we’re preparing some cool stuff.”

While Iwinski wouldn’t provide any exact details as to what the studio had planned, he affirmed that CD Projekt RED wouldn’t try to cheat its customers with subpar DLC.

“I think the word ‘DLC’ has been extremely devalued,” he said. “Any additional content is called DLC, whether it’s one sword or some costume options or a full expansion pack. I really look at it differently. For me DLC is the smaller bits and pieces, and we will never charge for those things. However, if we do a big adventure—say, 15 or 20 hours long, a very high production value story extension to the game—then we will probably charge for that.”

Iwinski’s statements, of course, come in the light of the ever developing discussion about DLC and the perception that some studios and publishers sometimes intentionally “devalue” games so they can sell more content as DLC post-launch. CD Projekt RED, he said, won’t partake in that sort of practice.

“With digital delivery and the ease of getting stuff to the gamer without the necessity of packaging it and shipping it to the store, I think a lot of people out there are very tempted [to do stuff like that]. I’m totally against it. I think we either make something meaningful for gamers or consider whatever else we do a service.”

Gamers, of course, will likely be eager to see what this “something meaningful” amounts to when The Witcher 3 releases next February on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

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They did the same thing with The Witcher 2, and it was pretty great. What they consider “small” is something other companies would charge $10 for. Act 3 of the Witcher 2 got an almost complete overhaul, and it was still free.

Yet more CD Projekt Pron. I personally loved their “rebalance” patch, which their lead dev did in his offtime, which basically made Witcher 2 an entirely new game combatwise, and of course it was still free. CDPR has a niche audience, but there’s a reason that audience is fanatically loyal. Stuff like this.

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